


The Waning Moon

by wily_one24



Series: Phases of the Moon [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, Smut smut and more smut, Stripper AU, and with plot comes the angst, omg has plot entered the phases of the moon series?, why yes yes it has, with the addition of plot this time around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:24:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3209063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wily_one24/pseuds/wily_one24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You think you can buy me?” It’s direct and loud and unmistakable as she strides right up to Regina’s desk and throws the envelope down, bills spilling out of it. “You think you can f*** me and then try to buy my body with money? F*** you, Regina!”</p><p>Jaw tight, cheek muscles twitching, and anger shooting out of her eyes, Regina bares her teeth in a blatantly false smile. </p><p>“Please excuse us, gentlemen, something just came up.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N** : It's the third installment. I don't know how happy you'll all be with this one, it's very emotion and passion heavy (and not necessarily the good ones) but there you go. Perhaps wait until you hear Regina's side of things. Which will come. But I'm not promising when.
> 
>  **A/N:** The nature of Emma's work being what it is, there is vaguely disturbing descriptions of Emma and a man, but nothing serious. And we all know Emma's rule, don't we? No touching.

Emma wakes blurry and sated, belly down on the mattress, with a weight on her back. 

A mouth sucks lightly on the skin beneath her ear and a hand is placed directly between her legs, fingers moving slowly but surely to wake her up in a wet, slick slide of need. Her legs spread even further, giving access. 

“You fell asleep.”

Regina’s voice is warm and amused and deep. 

“Mmm.” Her breath sucks in, hard, when Regina gives one good push with two fingers right up into her. “How long was I out?”

Teeth bite gently, but insistently on her ear lobe. 

“Nearly twenty minutes.” 

She’s so wet that Regina’s fingers in her sex are making squelching sounds in the dark. It does nothing but drive them both on, Regina moving faster and harder now that she’s awake, and Emma arching her back and letting out a quiet, stifled moan as she pulls her arms in to push up on her hands. 

Regina likes her best on all fours and Emma is more than inclined to agree. 

The room is awash with the scent of sex and sweat and shrouded in shadows much too dark to be a decent hour anymore. Emma hangs her head between her elbows, her hair falling down to the bed and dragging as she’s thrust forward and then pushes back. 

“Yes.” Quiet, quiet and desperate is their usual soundtrack. “More. Harder.”

And Regina doesn’t disappoint. Emma feels the body covering hers, feels the change in stance that means the woman is bracing her feet and knees on the bed to better use her body weight to really give it to her. 

They’re both sated and drowsy and this is pushing their limits, limbs heavy with several orgasms. Emma’s tongue curls with the remnants of Regina’s taste, the feel of hot thighs tensing around her head, the gasping of Regina with that voice, the two of them sliding skin against skin, the feel of hot, hard nipples rubbing against each other. 

It takes longer than usual, both of them sex drunk, teeth biting down Emma’s spine and the fingers of Regina’s free hand digging hard into Emma’s hip, curling and holding and pushing just _so hard_ that there could, but won’t be, bruises in the morning. 

Emma comes in a gush, face falling with heavy shoulders back to the pillow, her spine following in a downwards arch until her shaking thighs splay out flat once more. Regina lies there, face cushioned on the pads of Emma’s ass. 

“You should go.”

It’s a blink, two, while Emma chases the remaining post coital glow, before she pushes herself up and feels the soft, slick glide of Regina letting her go.

She picks up her underwear and slides them on, not bothering or needing to find the light switch. This is their routine now. Sex. Hard sex, soft sex, needy sex, mind blowing sex. Then out before morning. 

Regina’s eyes burn into her skin as she slides her jean up her legs. 

She doesn’t bother to say goodbye before slinking out of the room, down the stairs and out of the house. 

***

His eyes are greasy and Emma has to work to keep the smile plastered on her face as she stalks towards his lap. 

Her body is lithe and sinewy and glitters with the body dust she’s covered herself with. It’s false, it’s all false, she’s always known this, but it’s never felt like this before. Her brain can’t switch into work mode, she cannot find that zone that lets her escape. 

So she’s stuck in this crowded, stifling room with dimmed lighting, letting his eyes crawl all over her skin, aware… so goddamn aware… of every untoward idea running through his head as his pupils dilate and his tongue pokes at the sides of his mouth. 

If he notices the goosebumps on her skin, he obviously doesn’t realise why they’re there. 

She’s already given him the no touching speech and she’s glad of his obedience as his hands stay clenched around the arms of the chair. 

When she closes her eyes, hands rising to lift her hair off her shoulders, she can picture Regina underneath her, eyes ablaze with lust and promise and need. Her body does the rest, undulating in a naturally sensuous rhythm it couldn’t find before. 

The deep, husky groan that comes out of his mouth slams her back to reality, back to the seedy room and his seedy lap with his greedy eyes.

Silence descends as the song ends and Emma steps back, relieved and trying her best to hide it. She must be successful to some degree, because he chuckles darkly and his hands shake as he reaches into his pocket. 

“Here.” His voice leers worse than his eyes. “You deserve it. Let me know if you ever start extras, okay babe? I’ll be first in line.”

Emma’s eyes stay on the crumpled fifty dollar bill as he leaves the room. 

She gathers what little clothes are left to her and stalks into the staff bathroom so she can lock a stall door and kneel down in front of the toilet. Bile threatening to rise up her throat. She’s lost control of her life and she can’t stand it. She should stop things now, before they get even worse. 

“Fuck you.” It’s a hiss, a threat and a plea. “Get the fuck out of my head.”

But she knows the next time her phone rings, she will answer it just as eagerly as she always does. 

***

Emma arches her back, helped by the hand in her hair pulling it hard, and moans. 

Wet, slick slapping of skin fills the air, heady with the scent of sex and Emma is finally, finally allowed to be loud. Her wrists ache as she rocks back and forth on all fours, pushed fast and rough, her breath comes in pants into desperate lungs fighting for air. Her fingers clench in the sheets. 

Behind her a grunt fills the air with effort and it makes her bow her spine down, elbows collapsing under the pressure and her face hits the bed.

“Up.” Regina growls and Emma is helpless but to obey. “Better.”

Emma closes her eyes and pushes up again, closes out the walls and pillows and the sunshine coming in the window in her line of vision so that she can concentrate on the feeling of fingers wrapped around her hips, the pelvis hitting her ass, and the hard, thick silicone cock inside her. 

“Fuck.” It falls out of her mouth like a mantra. “Fuck. Fuck. Fu-uh-uh-uck.”

And then Emma is coming, loud and vocal and earth shattering. 

“Wait.” Regina’s fingers close in tighter. “Wait… wait…”

But then Emma feels the rhythm of Regina’s hips hiccup, the stuttering, and Regina’s voice hums out a nice, quiet, polite approval. 

They both collapse to the bed in a tangle of sweating, sex slick limbs and for a brief, brief moment, Emma keeps her eyes closed and lets herself feel it. Feel the slide of Regina’s arm against hers, the weight of Regina’s ankle over her shins, the feel of fingers resting against her ribs. 

It doesn’t last, of course it doesn’t. 

“He’ll be home soon.” Regina says after she has caught her breath. “You should be gone by then.”

Regina is lying on her back with her left arm resting over her face. She never watches Emma leave, after she is sated and her itch is scratched, she never subjects herself to the distasteful sight of Emma picking her clothes up off the floor and slinking out of the room. 

Out of the house, out of her orderly life. 

Emma sets her jaw and sits up. 

She’s going to stop coming back one day. She is. Today is obviously not that day. 

***

“Hey Joe.” 

Emma smiles as she walks into the bar. She shakes off the day and puts on her work persona. Sometimes it’s freer just to be this Emma. The one who gives people exactly what they want and gets paid handsomely in return. 

She slides up to the bar and sits on the stool, waiting for her usual two shots. 

“Emma?” But Joe looks confused to see her and he isn’t picking up any glasses, let alone a bottle of alcohol. “You didn’t get the message?”

Something is obviously not right, but she’s still not picking up on the cues, obliviously shrugging. 

“Forgot to charge my phone, what’s up?”

His smile is forced and apologetic as he reaches under the bar and produces an envelope. 

“You’re not needed tonight. Here’s your pay. Go home.”

Her brain lags behind the rest of her body as her fingers numbly take the package. 

“What?” It’s heavy, heavier than she would have thought, and so she opens it only to raise her eyebrows at the amount that is in there. “What I meant, of course, was… what?”

“Think of it like a paid vacation.”

Emma narrows her eyes. 

“Strippers don’t get paid vacations, Joe. What the hell is this?”

Joe is a plain speaker. He tells it like it is without wasting words on making things sound prettier. This is why they get along so well. Emma is always appreciative on honesty and simplicity. He doesn’t play games and she makes him money and they like it that way. 

“Take it.” He sounds strangely forceful. “Go home and rest for a change, why don’t you?”

Strangely forceful, as if he was nervous, as if he thought… 

“Fuck you, Joe.” Only one person in this town has any kind of power over local businesses and, really, she should have expected this well before now. “Are you taking, what, her hush money? Did she threaten the place?”

Two months. 

They’ve been sleeping together for two months. 

And that’s really all they’ve been doing. That’s the only thing Regina allows. She calls Emma, they fuck, and then she tosses Emma out of the house. It’s a routine. 

“Emma, come on.” If he was anybody else, he would sound as if he was begging, but he’s really just laying out the truth for her. “It’s easy money. Easier than going out there night after night.”

That’s when she knows it’s not just for tonight. 

***

Emma stalks right past the uptight assistant who tries to protest and into the office, pushing the double doors open violently.

“You think you can buy me?” It’s direct and loud and unmistakable as she strides right up to Regina’s desk and throws the envelope down, bills spilling out of it. “You think you can fuck me and then try to buy my body with money? Fuck you, Regina!”

Jaw tight, cheek muscles twitching, and anger shooting out of her eyes, Regina bares her teeth in a blatantly false smile. 

“Please excuse us, gentlemen, something just came up.”

It’s then that Emma becomes aware of the two other men in the room, their jaws slack and eyes wide. One of them looks like he can’t get out of the room fast enough, the other one looks like he wants to get a tub of popcorn and stay right where he is. 

“Today, gentlemen.” She doesn’t raise her voice, but Regina obviously leaves no room for argument. “I will rearrange this meeting soon.”

Emma stands in silence, fuming, the dregs of her anger swirling bitter and sickening in her blood. 

When they are alone, Regina turns her anger on Emma. It’s silent an accusing and, if Emma looks hard enough, guilty. 

“I’m not sure I know what you’re…”

“Bullshit.” Emma doesn’t let her finish. “We both know it was you, so don’t insult me by playing this game. What the fuck are you trying to do?”

There’s a pause in which Regina looks away first. 

“I don’t like…”

“What?” Emma doesn’t give her room to formulate an answer, taking advantage of the slow, hesitant way the woman is talking. “My job? Yeah, I’m a stripper. I take my clothes off for money. So what? A job, may I remind you, you left me no choice but to take. You knew what I was when we started this.”

Regina’s fingers curl up into themselves and she pulls them in close to her abdomen. 

“Things have changed.”

Emma sneers. 

“Nothing has changed. You’re not my girlfriend.” The word wants to choker her, too large for her mouth, bitter and alien on her tongue. “We’re not dating. You just like to fuck me. So no, you don’t get to say what I do or who I do it with. That’s my _job_ , Regina!”

“Get a different one!”

There’s jealousy in Regina’s eyes, clear as the lust has always been, and it twists her up inside. Just a little. 

“No. You don’t get to do that, Regina, you don’t get to force me into a job, come and feel me up at that job, then get annoyed I’m still doing it. You don’t get to shame me for who I am. Fuck you, fuck the horse you rode in on, just fuck you.”

She turns on her heels, ready to stalk out of the office, out of Regina’s life for good. 

“What if I got you another job?” Regina’s voice tempts behind her. “What if something else opened up in town?”

There’s a hand in her gut, wrenching her insides, twisting and pulling and _hurting_ her deeply. 

“Go fuck yourself, you hypocritical…” She can’t finish the sentence, can’t do it, her brain already throwing up image after image of Regina and her worshipful eyes, the awestruck way she touches Emma, the way she _needs_ her like no one else ever has. “You don’t get to pick and choose what parts of me you approve of. I’m a stripper, that’s how this whole thing started, you accept it or you don’t. That’s up to you. But you don’t _ever_ pull this shit again, do you hear me?”

There are two Regina’s in her brain; the one that likes her and this newer uglier one that makes her feel two inches tall. And she hates that they’re both the same person. 

And she hates even more that she knows, without a doubt, that she would roll over and purr if ever that woman, either version of her, would show her the slightest bit of affection. 

“You don’t threaten me.” A third Regina emerges, darker and more dangerous. “I can make sure you never step foot in that establishment again.”

Emma bows her head.

“Do you even like me?” She could howl, just lift her head at the sky and howl, both at how weak she sounds and how weak she actually feels. She wants to keep yelling, keep cursing, just keep throwing insults at Regina until she hurts just as much as Emma does. But she can’t and she doesn’t and instead she swallows. “Or am I really just some commodity you can use and throw away?”

She hears footsteps. No words, but footsteps. 

Then there’s the heat of a hand. Not the hand itself, no touching, but the heat that says Regina’s hand is hovering above her skin, above her hair and down her neck and over her shoulder, following the line down her spine. 

But there’s no contact. 

“Of course I like you, Emma.” Closing her eyes, she wishes, just wishes that Regina would press that final inch and lay her hands on her body. “More than you’ll ever know.”

It’s too much, too close, too heated, like all their interactions, and Emma hates herself for spinning around and being the first to launch herself across that final few inches of distance, mouth to mouth and kissing. 

Hands are in her hair, threading through the strands of it, holding her closer as Regina kisses her back, slightly desperate, but just this side of gentle. 

Emma strips the jacket from Regina’s shoulders and unbuttons her blouse with easy, quick fingers, sucking a line down Regina’s throat to the tops of her breasts. 

“I don’t like to share.” Regina gasps from somewhere above. “I don’t want anyone else to see you.”

Cold water sluices right through her heat. 

Emma gives a sigh as she steps back. 

“That’s not really your choice, is it?”

Face flushed, pupils dilated, shirt undone, skin reddened, chest rising and falling in a pant, Regina looks freshly fucked, but thoroughly unsatisfied. 

“Take the money, Emma.” If it were anyone else, it would be a plea, but it’s not. It’s Regina and it’s a demand. “Take the money and stop going there night after night.”

She feels like she’s arguing in circles. 

“I don’t want your money and you obviously don’t want me.” She raises a hand and it hovers in mid-air. Honestly she has no idea what she was about to do, point it at Regina in a threat, wave goodbye, some other gesture. “You can stop me working at the Blue Moon, Regina, but there are other strip joints outside of Storybrooke you don’t control, I can work anywhere I need to and still come back to see Henry.”

Panic floods Regina’s eyes and she honestly can’t tell if it’s the thought of losing Emma or losing control. 

“Who knows?” It’s a careless, casual shrug. “Maybe I can start doing extras and begin earning the big bucks.”

It’s a lie, an empty threat, they both know it. 

Emma would never. 

Could never. 

But it inflames Regina anyway, just the thought of Emma touching or being touched by someone else, the jealousy spiking hard in her eyes as Emma watches her choke on her words, grinding her jaw before she can summon the words. 

“Don’t you dare walk out of here.”

But she can’t stay here, either. 

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hello, Doctor Hopper, yes, I’ve become completely infatuated with the woman who is destined to ruin my life. I should be working to destroy her and instead all I can think about is breaking into her apartment and burying my fingers so far inside her she will cough my fingerprints. How’s Pongo?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : All relevant warnings/stuff/whatevers are in the first chapter and I honestly have nothing. Enjoy the fic!

***

Regina doesn’t deal well with threats. 

She spent much too long living with intimidation and menace and control to ever allow herself to be vulnerable again. She orchestrated an entire town to work underneath her to specifically avoid ever being in a position where any person could even think to hold a position of superiority over her. 

The very thought that Emma Swan, of all people, could throw those words at her as if they weren’t life shattering… it is ludicrous and insane and infuriating and… 

She sighs. 

Regina deals even less well with rejection. 

She certainly doesn’t pace the front lobby of her house, hands twitching at her waist and checking her watch every few minutes until she hears the familiar rattle of an engine. She doesn’t hide behind the curtains, peeking out and watching for a glimpse of yellow hair. 

And she absolutely, positively, will not accost her son the second he walks in the… 

“Henry!” He looks surprised at her voice, barking at him before he’s even had a chance to close the door behind him. “How was your afternoon? How was Emma?”

Regina is fairly sure that somewhere, far back deep in her history, she used to be a Queen that acted with all the prestige and subtlety and poise of a Queen, that understood and excelled at politics and how to use them to get what she wanted. 

Obviously, that time has passed. 

“Okaaaaaay?” He drawls the word out like a question, his eyes giving a slight roll and his upper lip curling in an approximation of a sneer that he is all too soon growing into. “She’s really tired now that she’s forced to leave town to find work.”

It’s an attack on her, obviously, and she would call him out on it if he wasn’t correct in blaming her for that fact. She’s a little stunned, both because Emma actually called Regina out on her bluff three weeks ago and the fact that she told Henry anything about her work. 

He’s still a child, surely, he wouldn’t…

“What do you know of Emma’s work?”

“Enough to know I can’t invite her to parents’ career day at school.” 

Regina narrows her eyes. 

“Relax.” He roll his eyes again. “I’m ten, not two. She gave me a child friendly version and then I got the rest from the kids at school.”

Of course. It’s such a small town, people all know each other, they all know Emma and where she works. Or worked. It’s not a secret and Emma has never been ashamed of what she’s done. 

“It won’t work, you know.” Henry continues. “You won’t drive her away. She promised she wasn’t going to leave me.”

Then he shoulders his backpack and runs up the stairs. She doesn’t have the strength to reprimand him, not now. Not when she can return to the curtain and hold it back an inch, peer out into the street. 

A flash of bright yellow metal tells her that Emma is still there. 

She wonders if Emma misses it, misses her. Wonders if Emma wakes up in the middle of the night with her hand between her legs and memories on her mind. Wonders if Emma ever picks up her phone and scrolls through, sighing at the date of the last sent message between them. 

Not that she’s done that. 

Not at all. 

***

They were good together. 

Regina is sure of this. She’s a little too sure of this. 

She remembers mapping every inch of Emma’s skin, the pale pink flesh that flushed a rosy hue after being sucked or pressed or held, she remembers tasting the salt of Emma’s sweat and lying naked next to her in bed. 

Their bodies were almost opposites, but they fit together a little too well, complimented each other in ways that pushed them both, drove them higher and higher. She’s fairly sure Emma had more than one life altering orgasm at her teeth and tongue and fingers, she definitely had a few of her own. 

And Emma is beautiful. 

There is no denying that fact, no matter how hard Regina has fought it since the woman drove into town, Regina finds her alluring and captivating and addictive. There is something altogether magnetic about Emma’s carefree caution, the way she doesn’t care what people thinks, but strives too hard to please everyone. The bashful way she tells the world to fuck off. 

Regina wants to bottle it and keep it on her shelf. 

Regina wants to wrap Emma up, draw her near and never let her go, never let her out of her sight, and murder anyone that dare lay eyes on what is Regina’s ever again. 

Regina remembers a looney tunes cartoon yeti that smothered daffy duck while calling him George. 

Even the smallest of little children watching knew the yeti had to let the duck go as his eyes bulged and tiny limbs struggled. That was knowledge ingrained into the human genome. Living things needed to breathe. Living things did not like to be smothered and held back and…

Living things certainly did not like the feel of magic swirling about their limb and holding them down. 

Her fingers tap agitatedly on her desk. 

Regina is a Queen and people do not say no to Queens. Certainly not people who like their heads on their necks. 

But also… Regina is a Queen and Queens do not pick up their cell phones and send desperate texts to idiots who have no knowledge of how to behave around royals and not enough self-preservation to fake it. 

_\- Can we please talk?_

Dammit. 

She bites her lip and tries to read a budget report instead of staring holes through her blank cell screen willing it to beep in reply. She almost jumps when it finally happens. 

\- _Who is this?_

The fact that there is no magic left in this land is probably the only thing saving Emma from a fireball to the head. 

\- _Don’t be cute. I have the afternoon off and Henry won’t be home for another two hours._

For a while, a short, short while, it was the sort of text that would have Emma appearing at her doorstep breathless and anxious and already so very, very wet. 

But now there is silence. 

And Regina waits. 

Then waits some more. 

She signs some documents she can’t really be bothered reading, checks her email, answers a telephone call she should have answered three hours ago, then glares at her much too silent cell. 

\- _Emma?_

The reply is almost instantaneous this time. And blunt. 

\- _No, sorry Regina, but no._

***

She’s holding a basket with three pears, an apple, a bag of legumes and… she looks down… a package of luncheon meat she will never ever use in her life, when she _accidentally_ bumps into Emma at the grocery store. 

Well, it might be more of a soft, caressing glide past, but Emma definitely feels it if the gasp she gives as her whole body goes rigid is any indication. 

“Sorry.” Regina breathes, hands out in abject apology, before her eyes widen. “Oh! Emma! I didn’t see it was you.”

Emma’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t say anything about it. 

“Hey Regina.”

It’s a sigh and Regina might be projecting, but she swears she can hear longing and regret in that voice. Her hip sings with the memory of just touching Emma, that familiar body. The one she most definitely does not crave. 

“How have you been?”

“Really?” Emma’s eyebrows rise up into her forehead. “That’s what you’re going with? Small talk?”

Frustration bubbles up and she sighs. 

“I’m trying to be nice, Emma, what do you want from me?”

There is a flash of something in Emma’s eyes, anger and pain and disbelief. 

“Apparently nothing.” She throws up her hands and backs away, her own basket jangling against the shelves. “Catch ya later.”

Regina waits for a second, trying to hold back, as her eyes scan the woman in front of her. The long, lean limbs, the tight jeans that cover an ass she could map from memory, the curves, and the curls of her hair. 

“Wait!” She takes those important few steps, gratified at least that Emma does stop. “Please.”

When she catches up to her, Regina doesn’t hesitate this time in discarding the basket so that she can lay her hand on Emma’s arm. The heat sings between them, electric as always, and her fingers twitch against the soft, downy flesh. 

“I’ve missed you.” Her voice is soft and private and whisper like in the middle of the grocery store. “I want to see you again.”

Emma bites her lip, her head leaning away from her, as if she can navigate her body and her life like a steering wheel away from Regina. 

“Regina…” It’s a plea, low and begging. “Don’t do this.”

Her thumb slides up and down Emma’s skin, leaving goose pimples in its wake. 

“Don’t you miss it?” Lost, unsure, Regina reverts to what she knows all too well. The art of seduction. Her voice gets lower and she cuts her eyes in a knowing smirk, all the while her thumb makes wider and wider circles on the skin of Emma’s arm. “Don’t you miss me and you and coming so hard you saw stars?”

“Yes.” Emma’s voice cracks on the sigh of a word, the she uses her free hand to hold Regina’s hand still so she can pull her arm out of reach, away from the touch sparking them both. “But I don’t miss the way you made me feel.”

And then Regina is left watching Emma walk away again. 

***

Regina is fast losing her mind. 

She has reliable sources that have told her Emma did not return to Mary Margaret’s apartment until three in the morning. It’s 9 am now. The school teacher is long gone, off to teach the little ones the perfunctory art of bird house making.

Again.

Her skeleton key slides seamlessly into the lock. 

There is something dangerously manic about the way she is acting. She is just self-aware enough to realise this. Not so self-aware that it stops her creeping into Emma’s room to look down on the figure sprawled inelegantly over the covers. 

Regina’s mouth is bereft of all moisture as she looks at Emma’s bare limbs. She’s wearing a tank top and panties, nothing else, belly down with her face crushed sideways against the pillow, mouth slightly open. Emma’s right leg is straight, but her left is bent, knee hooked up to the side. 

She closes the lid of a clothes hamper and perches atop it, trying desperately not to think about a time not too long ago where she would have had no reason to stop herself rolling Emma over on the bed, divesting her of those panties and wake her up with a good gentle tongue fucking. 

That might possibly be going a little too far today, though, so merely sits the paper bag on the bedside table and gives a light cough. 

Emma stirs like Regina knew she would. She’s a light sleeper. 

“Mmmpphhwerrrr?” Comes the muffled voice, croaking a little, as one of Emma’s hands slide up out from under the pillow to swipe across her face. Her eyes blink open and she frowns. “Regina?”

It’s that soft, half asleep tone that Regina has tried hard not to remember, the one that is Emma stripped of all her waking defences, the one that she suspects very few people have ever heard. She waits a moment or two, letting the confusion on Emma’s face settle into realisation. 

“Jesus, Regina!” And there it is. Emma sits up, twisting to bring her legs around to rest her feet on the floor even as she reaches for the sheet to cover herself. “What are you doing here?”

Regina just gives a throat clearing cough. 

“You won’t talk to me and you manage to elude me at all other places. I figured if I came here, you’d have no reason to walk away.”

She watches Emma lift her arm to rub the heel of her hand into her eye, it reminds her very strongly of Henry and the comparison brings a warm feeling she does not welcome. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way.” It’s a wary little blink. “But are you insane? Like, certifiably, completely and utterly insane? You can’t just break into people’s homes and watch them sleep.”

That is the question of the day, really. Because Regina has felt herself losing control quite spectacularly of late and it’s not really a good feeling. 

Before she can even respond, Emma just sighs and brings both hands up to cover her face. Her shoulders slump and she looks defeated. 

“Yeah, sure, whatever. We’ll talk.”

As if the last ten minutes hadn’t confirmed it for her, this just cements the fact that this entire day has been one colossal mistake from start to finish. She should leave, she should apologise; she should perhaps book in a session with Archie as soon as possible. 

_Hello, Doctor Hopper, yes, I’ve become completely infatuated with the woman who is destined to ruin my life. I should be working to destroy her and instead all I can think about is breaking into her apartment and burying my fingers so far inside her she will cough my fingerprints. How’s Pongo?_

That should go over extremely well. 

Regina gestures to the bag on the table. 

“I bought you a muffin.” Emma’s eyes study her, slightly wrinkled, as if she’s trying to ascertain whether or not Regina is playing a trick on her. It makes Regina huff. “It’s from Granny’s. Perfectly edible.”

Reaching over to take the bag and peel the top open, Emma makes no move to reach in and actually take it. 

“Why?”

“Because it’s morning.” She snaps. “And I didn’t want to break in empty handed.”

There’s the hint of a smile quirking Emma’s lips before she hides it, but Regina sees. Then nothing, Emma crumples the lip of the bag down again and deposits the whole thing casually back on the table. Forgotten. 

Well then. 

Regina swallows again, tries to taste the words before she actually has to say them. Not that practice or forethought or mind games makes this any easier. 

“I made a mistake.” She says, looking past Emma at the window, not quite able to meet the woman’s eyes. “I did something wrong and I’m here to apologise for it.”

She does not miss the way Emma quirks her head to the side, the better to examine her further. 

“Something?” It’s a question put forth as a challenge. “Jesus fu… you don’t even know what you did, do you?”

Offering money so that Emma could stop working seems to be the main gist of it, Regina is fairly sure, but she also knows it’s something much deeper than that, something that slicked in between them and caused the chasm keeping them from even passing niceties. 

Emma slumps down, her head dipped low and her hands falling with a thump to the floor, arms dangling from her shoulders down between her legs. Her hair covers her face like a curtain and Regina watches the knobs of the woman’s curved spine as if she could read emotion from them. 

“You have a better job than me, a better car, a better house, a goddamn better life.” When Emma looks up, her eyes are both sad and defiant. “But I’ll be damned if I let you make me feel like _you_ are better than me because of it.”

Air catches in her throat, makes her choke on the denial that comes immediately to her mouth. 

“I’ve dealt with people like you my entire life, Regina.” So Emma continues, having found something to say now that she’s been forced into it. “You have a problem, so you just throw money at it until it goes away. You see someone like me and you think I’ll be so grateful for your easy money that you can own me. And that’s bullshit.”

“Emma…” Her voice is quiet and shamed and ignored. 

“You couldn’t control me, you couldn’t chase me out of town, so you tried to buy me.”

It’s an ugly, ugly accusation and Regina closes her eyes at the memory of the red faced rage Emma had stormed into her office with, the language that had been hurled at her. 

Regina steps forward, slowly, watching Emma’s eyes trained on her like prey sizing up the threat. There are so many ways she could play this and years of bleeding political power means she reads body language quicker than she reads words on paper. 

Standing above and in front of Emma would do nothing more than confirm her statements, sitting on the bed next to her is a better option, a signal of equality. 

Instead, Regina kneels. An action she can count on one hand she has done before. 

“I did not mean it like that.” She says, looking up to meet Emma’s eyes head on and not looking away. “I can see now how bad a move it was on my part, but I did not mean it like that.”

Emma bites her lip. 

“I told you… I…” Shoulders shrug as Emma glances around, breaking eye contact first and taking a deep breath. “I don’t do extras in my job. At the club I told you I wouldn’t do anything, not for money. And that first time we agreed, we _both_ said that this was about desire. I believed you, I thought you meant it, I thought you wanted me for me.”

“I do.” The words come quickly, afraid she’s not going to get her chance. “Emma, I do want you.”

Green eyes meet hers, crystal hard. 

“Then why did you make such a big show of buying my body from the strip club? If it wasn’t so that everyone knows, everyone is very clear on the fact that I’m stamped with ‘Property of Regina Mills’?”

Her fingers curl into fists on the tops of her thighs.

“It wasn’t like that, I…”

Regina bites her lip. 

She hates this, absolutely loathes this version of herself, this weak and bumbling fool that speaks without benefit of training or political acumen. The entirety of her adult life has been spent ensuring she is never placed in this situation, that she retains at least a modicum of power to protect herself. 

If she had a choice, she would return to that confident, cocky swagger that allowed her to look Emma in the eye and demand a lap dance, the control she had even as she begged the woman to be allowed to touch. 

And yet, here she is. 

Emma has bought this. Emma has earned this. By openly discussing her feelings, Emma has unwittingly put down the challenge that she must now take up. Each and every time Emma asked for affection and attention, verbally and silently, that Regina coldly and calculatedly blocked and ignored, she earned this moment of Regina’s honesty. 

The time has come. She can feel it. Emma has put forth her very valid arguments and now Regina must expose herself. She has to tell the truth or give up on this forever. 

“I’m not good with dealing with people.” Her mouth is dry and she ignores the muffled little snort Emma gives. “And for many reasons, I should not be with you or even want to be with you. For that reason I thought that if I kept myself distant from you, it would be easier to let you go when the time came.”

“Let me go?”

Of course Emma doesn’t understand. She’s working with less than half the knowledge Regina is. Emma does not know she is destined to fight Regina and win. Doesn’t know the hand Regina has had in her horrible childhood, in her mother’s destruction. She certainly has no idea that anybody and everybody that Regina ever does end up caring for is taken from her in one way or another. 

“I was trying to protect myself, Emma. And you, though you may not believe me.” She says again. “And I didn’t do a very good job. I thought I could stop myself caring about you, but I couldn’t stop the jealousy. Just the thought of…”

Emma’s face clouds over. 

“Which is my problem.” Regina rushes to say. “I know that. But… I don’t…”

It’s the smallest of wry smiles she can see on Emma’s face, trying not to shine through. 

“So, you were acting like a bitch because you liked me?”

She purses her lips. 

“Not quite the way I would have put it, but… yes, I guess you could say that.”

Regina puts her hands on Emma’s knees, gently at first, testing the waters. When Emma doesn’t pull back, she lets more of their weight fall, moulds her palms around the bones underneath, and lets herself feel the heat of skin once more. 

Emma shifts in place. 

“Well, then.” The words tumble out of her mouth, uncontrolled and held back all at the same time. “I suppose it’s quite obvious at this point that I have very little experience in dealing with this sort of…”

_Relationship? Honesty? Conversation? Cramps in her calf muscles from kneeling so long?_

“I’m not asking for a lifelong pledge here, Regina, Jesus!” Emma’s hands land on top of hers and she can feel the pulse shifting in the heated skin of palms against the back of her hand. “I’m happy with the two of us just being two hot women that want to fuck each other’s brains out on occasion. I wouldn’t say no to more, but I’m not asking for it.”

Two thumbs circle the edge of her wrists and Emma’s voice evens out, deadly serious. 

“I just want to be seen as a human being when we do, okay?”

Oh, if only Emma knew. Out of the two of them, she is the most human, more so than Regina has been for a very long time. She is something Regina envies, not innocent and not naive, but unjaded and wide eyed and wondrous all the same. 

And she wants to believe, wants to believe that Emma will still look at her like that once she finds out the truth, but she knows this, whatever it is between them, is temporary. Must be temporary. She tried, she did try, but she is now too selfish to continue pushing Emma away. She will take this for as long as it is offered and suffer the consequences later. 

The consequences that are piling up to insurmountable levels already, surely they will not be altered by this transgression. 

Regina pushes Emma’s knees apart, sliding her hands to cup the woman’s knees and simultaneously pull her harshly to the very edge of the bed. The sound Emma gives begins as a whimper and ends as a groan when Regina’s pelvis slams into her sex. 

“I’ve never doubted that, Ms Swan.” It’s a whisper to parted lips as she kneels up to breathe into Emma’s waiting mouth. “And if I made you feel any different, I should make up for that immediately.”

When she pushes up on her toes, body surging forward to push Emma down to her back, there is no argument. She kisses Emma hungrily, allowing the frustration of their time apart to show, an admission of something she has yet to voice out loud. She wants this, wants this more than she can say, and Emma must feel it, Emma must _know_ , because she is being kissed back with just as much eagerness. 

“I’ve missed you.” She murmurs to the skin of Emma’s neck as she slides her hands down Emma’s shoulders to grab at her wrists, pull them up over Emma’s head and stretch her out flat on her back. “And you are wearing far too much.”

A low chuckle reverberates from the ribcage underneath hers, Emma grinning slyly at the thin tank and panties being so much less than Regina’s pencil skirt and blouse combo. But there is no resistance when Regina scrabbles to get the thin cotton from Emma’s body, to look down at the breasts so boldly winking up at her. 

Emma stretched out taut underneath her, arms above her head, muscles rippling, tight rosy nipples, flat stomach and quivering thighs. It feels much too easy to grind her hips, to flatten her body down and latch her mouth onto Emma’s neck. 

She revels in the feel of Emma’s hips grinding back, that little searching movement, the need for friction. The fingers of her left hand tweaking a nipple harshly, it is her right hand that is able to finally, finally find purchase between the woman’s legs, wet and warm and waiting. 

“If I had my strap on.” She promises like a threat into the slick wet skin of Emma’s neck. “I would fuck you so hard into this mattress that you couldn’t walk for a week.”

Emma lets out a low whine of need and then twists underneath her, reaching her hand out. 

“The cupboard.” It comes out like a pant. “I have toys of my own.”

But Regina catches Emma’s hand in hers and brings it back down, holds Emma still as she kisses her way up Emma’s neck. 

“No.” Simple, forceful, no room for argument. “This time I just want you.”

And when she enters Emma hard with two fingers, she revels in the cry that sounds from her throat. 

***

TBC 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The silence that follows is full of promise. Emma waits for the response, because that response will define everything between them from here on out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** I've had a few requests for updates on this fic. I hope this suffices. A little less smut in this one, but a touch. A teensy little bit. Part of smut. More of a 'smu'.
> 
> **A/N:** Okay, so it's a little bit two steps forward, one step back for these two right now. Let's not be too hard on Regina right now, because trust is not an easy thing for her. Also, her question might seem confusing, but wait to see her side of things before wondering too much, okay? Okay.

***

Three weeks, Emma thinks. 

Three weeks makes all the difference. 

They haven’t magically turned into a loving couple that dotes on each other, but some things have changed. Small things, not notable in any sense of the word, except that Emma feels them. Emma appreciates them. 

She needs them. 

At this very moment she’s standing in Regina’s study watching the flames in the fireplace, the bright orange threaded with flickering shadows. Her belly is full and her brain is only slightly fuzzy from the wine they’ve shared. 

And Regina, Regina is upstairs saying goodnight to their son. 

They haven’t told him. Emma understands this, it’s a delicate situation and she figures that simply stating they’ve stopped the hatred and gone straight to screwing each other’s brains out is probably not the best solution. 

So they’re working slowly to introducing the idea of them getting along. Which is why she was invited to dinner tonight for the first time. He seemed slightly suspicious and wary and his eyes did not stop flickering between them like he was watching a tennis match waiting for one or both of them to explode in their usual threats, anger and bitterness. 

It’s probably a good thing he’s not aware of the sort of explosions that will happen between them once he is asleep. Not aware of the way his mother’s eyes raked up and down’s Emma’s body as she walked in the door, all warm and promising instead of demanding and possessive. 

She is still unable to spend the night or stay as long as she would like, but Regina no longer pulls Emma into the house, fucks her, and then throws her out immediately after. There are lingering moments where they exist together without demands and Emma was completely correct. 

Regina has her unabashedly, unashamedly tamed for the least bit of sincere affection, rolling over like a puppy to get her belly petted. 

“Well.” The voice startles her out of her reverie. “That went surprisingly well.”

“Well?” Her nose scrunches up in mock confusion, she’s inclined to agree but likes the little tease. “What were you expecting? Broken dishes, tears, the fire department having to be called?”

Regina rolls her eyes with a small smile as she stalks closer. 

“At the very least.”

When they’re standing next to each other, Emma’s breath catches in her throat as she is hit with the image of Regina sliding her arms around her and just holding her, nestling her chin on Emma’s shoulder, swaying a bit as they look into the fire. It doesn’t happen, of course, things haven’t changed that much. But Regina’s hands are soft as they slide to the side of her hips and follow the trail of her jeans around to the button at the front.

“You’re wearing far too much.”

The metal slides through the little hole made for it as Emma lets a small moan of approval rumble out of the throat that heats up when lips open up on its skin. Regina is gentler with her now, most of the times, they’re still quite energetic in the bed, but outside of it Regina makes sure to include these small moments of appreciation. 

Very, very careful with Emma. 

“Already?” It’s only a small protest, a token one. “Isn’t it too soon?”

“He won’t come downstairs.” Regina assures her, mouthing and sucking wet stripes up her neck to the side of her ear. “He thinks you’re gone and he has no reason to speak to me alone.”

It’s a sad, lonely admission and Regina must sense it the second it leaves her mouth, because she turns Emma around and pushes her backwards to distract her from giving any answer. Emma feels the seat of an arm chair hit her calves and she falls back into it before she can stop herself. 

Regina’s eyes glint bright and devilishly promising as she kneels down between Emma’s spread legs and begins tugging her jeans off. 

***

Emma lies naked and sweaty on the sheets. 

Her breath comes in deep, hard pants. Long swallows in and sharp gasps out, it’s all her body is capable of in this moment. Her right hand lies flat on her abdomen, pulled there by some inner need to hold her body together, sliding up to the top of her ribcage and down to her lower belly before coming back up again and again. Her legs lie splayed open and shaking like jelly. 

The tip of a fingernail scratches across her softened nipple. It’s not a sexual caress, but her body shudders under the sensitivity of hours of pleasure. She hears Regina’s low, dark chuckle next to her. Regina is on her side, head bolstered by her hand being held up by her bent elbow. Her fingernail tracing light patterns all over Emma’s flushed skin. 

“You are beautiful.”

Emma has lost the ability to speak as she submits herself to the soft touch, the way only the tip of Regina’s fingernail learns the curve of her breast and shoulder and down over the ridges of her ribs, the dip of her waist and bony curve of her hip. 

This Regina, the one that showed herself after that conversation, is free to explore and memorise Emma as she never let herself do before. And Emma adores it. 

“You must work out.” Regina whispers as her nail scratches across the flat line of her stomach. “Quite a bit.”

Emma’s left hand lifts over her head, draping on the pillow, and she grins as she turns her neck to the side to the look at the goddess next to her. 

“I dance.” She says, finally finding her voice. “Pole work takes extraordinary stamina.”

She watches carefully as Regina’s pupils narrow slightly, but the rest of her face remains calm. 

“Have you ever used weapons?”

This is, undoubtedly, the strangest pillow talk she’s ever had. Her eyebrows furrow in confusion. 

“What?”

Regina frowns, but less in confusion as it is seeming frustration. At not being understood, at not being able to explain further. 

“Could you protect yourself in a fight?”

At this, Emma jack knifes her body up into sitting and she looks back and down at Regina. 

“Is this a prison thing?” Before the denial comes spilling out, she does not let the woman answer. “You do realise I didn’t actually cut Henry’s cord with a shiv right? I mean, that is what you said once, isn’t it? Not all us jailbirds are in gangs.”

Regina follows her up, whatever little of the sheet having covered her now sliding down, and sits close enough that Emma can feel the heat of her body against the back of her shoulder, the soft supple flesh of her breasts and the soft press of five fingers against her spine. 

“Emma no.” Emma closes her eyes and feels a kiss on the edge of her shoulder. “There was no purpose in the question, I was just making conversation.”

She stiffens as the lie pings in her brain. Her knees bend and she wraps her arm around them, holding herself up as she lets her head fall down, eye sockets pressing into her kneecaps. Regina stays pressed against her. 

“Yeah.” It’s a soft, small whisper. “Okay.”

This Regina is dangerous in the way she makes Emma weak. The distant one, the one that refused to admit feeling anything or to show Emma any sign of weakness or care, that one made her feel used and low and ashamed. But this newer one, open and considerate, makes her greedy and desperate for more, willing to accept the obvious lies to continue receiving. 

“Come on.” Regina urges into her shoulder. “Lie back down.”

They have hours yet, this is not a night that Emma works, and she could lie here, just lie down and bask in the soft touches and the feel of Regina’s body next to hers, but Emma kicks her legs to the side and puts her feet on the ground, her eyes searching the floor for any semblance of clothes. The majority of them are still downstairs. 

“I’m thirsty.” The explanation is weak. “I’m just going to get some water.”

“There’s water right here.” 

Regina is not fooled, gesturing to the little carafe on her bedtable with the neat little tumblers on the tray next to it, and she swallows before shrugging.

“There are still glasses downstairs, don’t use another one, what a waste of dishes.”

Her voice shakes as she stands, bending down to pull up a discarded pair of panties and slide them on, sliding her arms through the sleeves of Regina’s blouse and not bothering to do the buttons up as she holds it closed in front of her chest. 

“I’ll be right back.”

Emma needs distance. Right now. This very second. She’s not running out of the house, but she needs to breathe away from the temptation, needs to think. Seriously think about what it could mean that Regina is lying to her, over something as simple as a conversation. It can’t just be the prison thing, Regina has never been shy of using it as a weapon before and honestly the conversation was nowhere near as offensive as the previous ones. 

She’s still jealous, Emma knows this, walking down the soft carpeted stairs in the dark shadows of the unlit house in her bare feet, but she’s hiding it well. Regina is sincere in her efforts to reel in what were strong feelings and Emma understands the insecurity there. 

Jealous partners are nothing new to strippers, she has worked with several girls whose boyfriends and some girlfriends had developed problems with their work. It’s something that Regina needs to work through, because Emma refuses to be ashamed of it. She has a nice body and people like to look at it, they pay her well enough to do so, and she refuses to let anything go further than that. Regina needs to be able to trust her enough to accept that. 

She finds their abandoned wine glasses on the small table near the arm chair and picks them up, quite willing to rinse hers out and use it as she’d just said. 

A small, muffled buzzing makes her turn her head and scan the floor until she can see her crumpled jeans. Her phone. The screen is lit up when she pulls it out and she sighs at the name that flashes there. 

“Hey Tony.”

_Emma! So glad I caught you._

“It’s my night off.” She states it bluntly, voice flat. “Don’t bother. I wouldn’t be able to make it there in time anyway, I’m hours out.”

His pleading voice is slimy and desperate. 

_No, no, I know. But Chastity broke her leg and I have her booked for tomorrow night as well._

She is still highly unimpressed. 

“Tomorrow night is my night off, too, Tones, you know this.”

_It’s a private gig; a bachelor party, one hour tops._

Her vocal chords harden even further. 

“You know I don’t do that. Shows only.”

The pitch of his voice turns into a wheedling whine that sets her teeth on edge. 

_Yeah, yeah, but Emma. The guy who organised it is a regular, he’s a good guy, and they tip really well. The girls usually make over a thou easy._

“Wait.” She tries not to gasp. “How much for an hour?”

_Sometimes two, if it’s a busy party and you make ‘em happy. I know this guy, he’s good people, Emma. Strictly legit, I promise, it’s nothing more than you do on the stage or in the privates. You’ll have a security guy with you, so nothing will happen, I promise. Come on, I’m kinda desperate._

He has her, he knows it, and Emma sinks against the back of the sofa as her shoulders sag. 

“Depends on which guy.” She knows the security staff and some of them she’s more willing to work with than others. “Give me his name, text me the address and time and I’ll let you know.”

She can hear the grin in his voice. 

_Give ‘em a good show, Ems._

“For that much money? I’ll make him the happiest client you’ve ever had.”

She stuffs the phone back into her jeans and picks up the rest of her clothes from various points around the floor, before juggling the glasses in her hands as well and then edging back out the door to head back upstairs, back to the warmth of the bed and Regina’s welcoming body. 

“Who was that?”

Regina is sitting on the stairs, watching her cagily with a closed off expression Emma hasn’t seen in three weeks. 

“My boss.” She shrugs. “I’m working tomorrow.”

“Oh?” Regina’s eyebrow arches and she stands slowly, smoothly, in one motion. “I thought we had plans?”

There is icy waters here, Emma can feel it, but she can’t quite sense the dangers she’s treading into. She thinks back to the conversation she just had and wonders if maybe Regina had heard, but her stripping is not a secret and she’s telling the truth. There’s nothing there to invite this sudden change in atmosphere. 

“I know.” It’s a rush to assuage, her voice thinning out a little in a plea she doesn’t quite understand. “But I just got called in. We can reschedule, right? Hey, you wanted to do that miner’s thing, didn’t you? Maybe I can get that night off now? We can all go.”

Regina seems to consider this, her top lip slipping inside her teeth for a second, before she reaches out and takes the glasses out of Emma’s hands. 

“Perhaps.” Then she nods behind Emma. “Your shoes are by the door.”

Emma’s jaw drops. 

“What?”

“It’s getting late.” Is Regina’s answer. “You really should leave.”

***

Walking down the street in the sunshine is perhaps the favourite part of her day. 

At least, it is when she’s walking with Henry after school. 

“So, what’s this miner’s parade thing all about?”

He shrugs a little less enthusiastic than she expected. The way Regina had been speaking about it made it seem like some exciting celebration. 

“Festival. The nuns sell candles and there’s some stalls selling other stuff and usually some activities. The whole town comes out.”

Emma is slightly confused. 

“The nuns sell candles?” Henry nods. “What does that have to do with miners?”

He shrugs again, the large backpack on his shoulders heaving, rolling his eyes. 

“Beats me. It’s some Storybrooke history thing.”

Emma shields her eyes from the sun as she scans the main street with its quaint little shops and homey small town feel. 

“Do you guys even have miners here?” But then she shrugs as well. “Look, you interested in going?”

Henry scrunches up his nose and pauses for a moment, before sighing and shaking his head. 

“Mom says she’s not going this year. It’s weird, she’s the Mayor, so usually she has to go, but I asked her this morning and she snapped at me.”

Oh. 

Well. 

That just about confirms it. 

“I’ll talk to her, kid.” She puts her hand on the back of his shoulder. “You’ll go.”

She looks at the time and sighs. There’s not much time before she has to leave for her gig tonight and she’s more nervous than she wants to let on. Edgy and rushed is not the way to begin an in depth conversation. That talk will have to wait until tomorrow. 

***

Her ankle slips out from underneath her in the dark and she almost falls on her too high heels. 

A bit of manoeuvring and a hand at her elbow steady her. Emma pulls herself up straight, lengthens her neck, and then pulls her elbow away sharply. 

“What the hell was that in there, Brian?” 

Her purse is stuffed with notes, enough so that she can take the days she wants off next week. Perhaps more. It will definitely make her life easier for the next few weeks. But it’s not enough to put up with the careless shrug he gives as they walk to their cars.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, Princess.”

She rounds on him, sticking her finger straight out towards his chest. She’s not small, not by any measure, but she still barely comes up to his nose. He’s well built for his job and nobody would even think to go against any of his rules. 

“No touching means no fucking touching.”

Her hand tightens into a fist as she pulls it in closer to her own body, more to hide the shaking than anything else. She flicks her hair behind her shoulder and stalks off, leaving him standing there puzzled in the dark of night as she heads towards her yellow bug, tight clothes leaving too much skin bare to the cool air, goose pimples, and the need to get away as fast as she can. 

***

It’s nearly midday before she can make herself presentable. 

A quick text and Regina agrees to lunch in her office. She brings a bag of food from Granny’s and swallows hard before knocking on the door. A neutral sounding voice bids her enter and she finds Regina behind her desk, immaculate as ever with her perfect hair and tasteful yet tempting office wear. 

“Hey.” Emma tries for cute, with a smile and wide eyes as she holds up the bag. “I hope you’re hungry.”

Regina levels her with a steady look and waits a second before speaking. 

“Close the door behind you.” 

She obeys automatically, barely having time to turn around and meet Regina’s eyes again before she is floored by the archly dangerous voice that does not ask but demands. 

“And how was work last night?”

Emma flinches, but she recovers quickly enough to give her hope that Regina did not notice. 

“It was, you know…” A shrug. “Work.”

The air drips with a sickly feel of inevitability; she knows that there is a trap somewhere, but she cannot see the signs anywhere, does not know where her steps are likely to go wrong. 

“Oh.” Regina steeples her fingers on top of her desk and peers at her over the top of them. “And did you give a good _performance_?”

Air squeezes hot and tight in her lungs and Emma does not notice the paper bag slip out of her fingers and fall to the floor. The ground spins and she suddenly feels the need to sit down. The nearest chair is all the way across the room and all she can do is put her hand out and lean against the door. 

There is no mistaking the implication thrown at her and she cannot, she refuses to, she is utterly incapable of having this argument again and again, in circles, for perpetuity. 

“I took my clothes off.” Her voice does not shake and it’s the only surprising thing about this conversation. “Guys got off on it. What more are you expecting me to say?”

Regina stands up slowly and takes careful, measured steps until she has rounded the table. She looks like a lion ready to pounce. She is feline grace and her body holds the promise of power that is almost threat. Emma admired and feared her in equal amounts from moment they first met and she hasn’t stopped. In this moment, Regina’s eyes are deep, dark pools of anger and bitterness. 

“I expect you to tell me the truth.”

The words are bitten out as if they taste bad on her tongue. 

Emma hopes she chokes on them. 

“Don’t hold back, Madam Mayor, say what you want to say.”

She won’t make this easy on her. 

“Did you make the man the _happiest client_ ever, Emma?” Regina’s eyes are dark and threatening, but they are also hurt. “Doing things you don’t normally do? That was what you’d said, isn’t it?”

Emma’s eyebrows raise as her face blanks out in innocent agreement. 

“Yes.” Her nonchalance is a challenge. “I went to a private buck’s night party, which I don’t normally do, and earned more there than I do in a week. I took off my clothes, gave a few lap dances, all of which I do normally do. So why don’t you tell me, Regina, what you’re really trying to ask?”

She refuses to back down, or plead, or make herself weaker for this. She has no reason to feel ashamed of her work. 

“A private party?” The steam seems to escape as Regina visibly deflates in front of her eyes. “That’s all it was?”

“Yes.” Emma bites it out as she steps forward. “With a security guard to ensure my safety at all times. Does that answer all your questions? Because I would have told you if you’d just asked me.”

It does not escape her notice that Regina steps back, the shortest distance possible until she’s leaning against her own desk. 

“I’m sorry.” 

And Emma feels like laughing. 

But not in a happy way. 

“Sorry for what, Regina, exactly?” She takes another step and there is less than a foot between them now. “Not talking to me first like an actual adult? Basically calling me a whore? Having this same conversation over and over again? What?”

There is no answer, at least not one that will appease her right now. 

Emma looks Regina straight in the eyes, those deeply apologetic and pleading eyes, and doesn’t look away as she reaches down and unzips her right boot, then her left. She toes them off easily, hearing the slight thunk as they fall to the floor. Her jacket slides off with very little effort. 

It isn’t until she has pulled her top over her head, dropping it to the side carelessly, that Regina’s eyes lose the confusion and spark instead with a little fear. 

“What are you…?”

But Emma hisses her disapproval in a hushing sound. She stands in jeans and bra, the skin of her torso bared to the room, to eyes that don’t blink. 

“I am talking now, Regina.” She stands proud and straight and takes that last step forward so that they are touching, face to face, breathing each other’s air. “And you better listen, because this is the last time I am ever going to say it, do you understand?”

Regina swallows, her eyes dropping for an instant before coming back up. 

Holding the gaze, Emma snaps the button to her jeans, undoes the fly, and pushes them down past her hips, shimmying to let them fall down to her ankles and stepping out of them easily. Regina has not moved, but her lower lip has been caught in her teeth and her eyes fall down. 

She takes the opportunity to bring her hands up and push at Regina’s shoulders. The woman stumbles back against the desk and Emma follows, climbing up so that she is now straddling Regina’s lap on the edge of her desk amidst papers and files and a phone and a stapler. 

“Do you see this? This is what I do.” It’s easy and familiar and orderly, beginning the grind, taking note of the large swallow that bumps along Regina’s throat. “I’ve done it so often it’s not even sexual to me. It’s not even a wild guess to say I’ve done it for hundreds of guys, girls too.”

Leaning back on her hands, the skin of Regina’s knuckles are stretched white against the way her fingers clenched against the wood of her desk, straining not to reach up and touch. Emma grinds her hips down further to allow her to sit up, straightening her spine, and unsnaps her plain grey cotton bra. 

Her breasts fall free and she flexes her shoulders, just enough to stretch the muscles of her back. 

“It means nothing. It’s just work. No matter what you, no matter what they, are thinking.” Emma leans forward and places her mouth right next to Regina’s right ear. “It means nothing.”

Weaving her fingers into Regina’s, Emma lifts the woman’s hands off the table and wraps them around her hips. She can feel the hesitant squeeze, the ten pin points of possession that press in. She takes the lobe of Regina’s ear between her teeth and closes her lips around it, pulling slightly to the sound of a heady gasp, and then letting go. 

“But you, Regina. You are the only one that gets to touch.” She pulls her face back so that she can look Regina in the eyes and lets her hands go. “And that? Is not nothing.”

The silence that follows is full of promise. Emma waits for the response, because that response will define everything between them from here on out. 

And Regina does not disappoint. 

One hand slides around from her hip to the small of her back, palm flattening on her skin, as the other hand reaches up and back to grasp the back of her neck, fingers twisting in her hair. Then Regina pulls her forward against her in a strong, demanding kiss. 

“So touch me.” She gasps, when Regina finally pulls back and they both gasp for air. Lips attach themselves to the side of her jaw and move down her neck, sucking on the tendon there. Emma throws her head back and feels her hair hanging against her spine. “And don’t ever question me again.”

***


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She is digging herself deeper into a hole that she cannot get out of. It’s too late to pretend she doesn’t want Emma, because she is just that selfish enough that she will now fight for her, but she knows the outcome is going to be ugly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** I'm... sorry?

***

Regina dips her shoulder and stretches her right hand out as far as it will go, her fingers flex in reaching.

She’s approximately a quarter of an inch short. Taking a breath in, she slowly shifts in her seat, walking her feet another inch to draw the chair forward. It’s as close to the desk as she dares, but it works and her fingers manage to grasp the receiver and pull it towards her ear, trapping it on her shoulder. 

“Rose? Cancel my three o’clock.”

There’s a pause on the other side of the line. 

“Are you sure?” She doesn’t answer, just lets the comment sit there for a few seconds. “I mean, you already had me cancel your two o’clock.”

“I realise that. I’m suddenly busy, not amnesiac.”

There’s a small sigh, but it’s just indulgent enough to let her know that it’ll be done. She thanks her assistant and then hangs up the phone. Rose was there when Emma first came into her office for lunch. It’s a certainty that the woman knows Emma never left. 

Regina shifts a little in her chair, picking up the paper on her desk and scanning it for what seems like the hundredth time in the past hour. She is fully aware of each breath she takes in, it’s a weight on her chest, a constriction that she has not bothered to mind. 

Several years ago, many more years than she cares to really admit, Regina would bring Henry to the office. When he was a baby, a toddler, and he would play quietly and eat the little packed lunches and snacks she bought him. She would take small breaks enough to read him a story or color with him at her desk. 

And when he got that needy, grizzly, sleepy little whine to his voice, she would let him crawl up into her lap and nap against her, arms and legs wrapped around her like a koala bear. 

It should not surprise her in the slightest that his mother is the same. 

Emma is, of course, larger and bulkier and does not fit nestled into her chest as well as Henry once did, but she is loose and limp and clingy in sleep. Her words ring in Regina’s ears. They’d fucked on top of her desk. Well, Regina had fucked Emma, made her come again and again. 

She’d known Emma was tired, had known she was emotional and, seeing the woman’s eyes droop afterwards, had let her lie against her as she sat in the chair. 

Regina was a Queen, she ruled lands, and she is a Mayor, she has ruled over this little town for nearly three decades. She is regal and sophisticated and so very clearly above the woman sleeping against her and yet… 

And yet Emma makes her stupid and awkward and ungainly; a feeling that she loathes.

Her hand lifts of its own accord, running through Emma’s hair, soft and silky and calming. She lets her fingertips touch the scalp, warmth against warmth.

She is digging herself deeper into a hole that she cannot get out of. It’s too late to pretend she doesn’t want Emma, because she is just that selfish enough that she will now fight for her, but she knows the outcome is going to be ugly. 

“Hummmunnnn.” Comes the drowsy mumble against her neck and Regina closes her eyes to savour the humanness of it. “How long was I out this time? Twenty minutes again?”

When Emma pushes herself up, blinking in the soft office light, her eyes are bleary and her hair is mussed. Regina smiles. 

“Two hours.”

“Two hours?!” Emma stumbles, falling off Regina’s knees and she pushes back and tries to stand. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

And Regina shrugs. 

“You were tired and needed the rest.”  
She doesn’t miss the softening of Emma’s expression. 

“Pretty sure you had work to do.”

She shrugs again. 

“I’ve gotten some things done.” She’s casual, too casual, forcibly so, and Emma takes notice immediately, her eyebrows raising in question. “Lifting some outdated city ordinances and the like.”

It takes Emma a few seconds to understand and when she does, she breathes in with eyes wide but resigned, already gearing up for a fight. 

“Don’t get me wrong.” Regina holds up her hands in supplication, palms out. “I’m not telling you to change your job, I’m not telling you not to. It’s up to you, but the fact remains that you had very little choice when you first came to town and now you have more.”

Emma sighs out and Regina decides to take it as relief. 

“If you want to keep working outside the town line, that’s good. If you want to go back to The Blue Moon, that option is there. If you want to see if Graham still needs a deputy, there’s nothing standing in your way there, either.”

Taking several steps back and to the side, Emma sits down on the chaise lounge, and looks without saying anything. Being under such scrutiny makes Regina’s skin crawl. She wishes Emma would react in some way, nod in agreement, argue, or yell, something. 

Nervousness and silence makes her stumble over her words.

“If stripping makes you happy, Emma, then that’s what I want for you, but…” But… she swallows. Emma is always defensive and prefers to answer any perceived attack with one of her own. She hopes this won’t be seen as one. “… but earlier when I asked you how it went… you flinched. And I don’t want you to feel you have to do things that make you flinch.” 

It’s a strained few seconds as she waits for some kind of response and then Emma seems to deflate, her head hangs low and her shoulders droop. Gone is the relaxed nymph sleeping against her and this defeated and exhausted creature has taken her place. 

The contrast is striking. 

“It wasn’t… bad.” But Emma’s voice is weaker than Regina remembers hearing from her. “I had a security guy there, Brian, you know, they’re always there on private gigs to make sure stuff goes ok. It’s just… Brian’s idea of no touching and my idea of no touching differed a little, that’s all.”

“That’s all?!” The words leave her mouth without waiting for a judgement call from her brain. “Define ‘a little’?”

Emma sighs. 

“It was just a regular bachelor party.”

Which might be sufficient explanation for anyone that has resided in this world outside of a town that stood still and didn’t evolve. Her silence must be taken for request for further details. 

“Thirty drunk guys. I went in, I stripped to music, danced on a few laps, it was the same thing I do everywhere else.” Emma is awkward in her description, but she isn’t upset, which makes the tension in Regina’s stance ease. “They liked me, they wanted to dance, the music was good. I didn’t really see a problem with it, you know, they were nice guys. But, a few of them figured the no touching rule was over once the show stopped. They got a bit handsy on the dance floor.”

Not upset, but Regina sees the reluctance and the lingering of stagnant, brief fear. Her hands tighten slightly and she brings them in closer to her body in the hopes Emma does not see. 

“I panicked a bit, you know. Thirty drunk guys and they all have hands, and there I am in the middle of them. You’ve seen what I wear, it’s not much. Brian didn’t say anything, but as soon as I made myself clear, they all backed off. They didn’t do anything… you know… bad. I left after that, got my stuff and they tipped really well, and I left. That’s it.”

Her first instinct, of course, is to demand Emma quit. This instant. The second instinct, if she still had magic, would be to fireball the lot of drunken fools who ever thought they had the right to Emma’s body. 

So Regina takes a breath and pauses before she speaks. 

“What do you want to do?”

***

Apparently Regina has some capability for learning left in her Emma fogged brain, because it had been the right thing to say and Emma had smiled at her, small and grateful and so very, very relieved. 

She’d said she’d needed to think, given all the options presented to her now, and had left taking with her the cold, greasy bags that had turned well past the appealing stage. 

Regina finishes up all the last minute things she can around the office and decides to call it a day, leaving work and going home. It’s a short drive and an even shorter welcome as Henry shrugs his grudging hello and disappears upstairs to his room. 

It’s both soul destroying and yet very difficult to call him on, given that he is correct in his view of her as the Evil Queen. 

She sighs and begins preparing dinner. At least, with the added guest of Emma joining them, it will not be a silent meal. Henry will talk to Emma and Emma will make an effort to talk to both of them. Chicken cacciatore is easy, vegetables even more so, and she finds herself standing in the kitchen swirling wine in the bottom of her glass when the doorbell rings. 

Heavy, excited footfalls echo down the stairs and through the foyer, followed by an even more excited voice. 

“You’re staying for dinner again? Cool!”

Emma is hope in this house. She is life again. 

Regina wants to hang on to that as long as she can. 

***

Regina inhales deeply. 

She loves the smell of Emma’s neck, lying together after a bout of heavy love making, a mixture of perfume and sweat and Emma. She’s content to lie still, limbs entwined, breathing heavy, with her head resting on a shoulder. 

A peaceful moment that cannot, of course, last. 

“What are we?” Emma asks. 

_Destined to destroy each other_ , she thinks but cannot say. 

“It’s too late for this conversation.” She says instead, tracing a fingertip over Emma’s sternum. “Can’t we just enjoy the afterglow?”

She is not surprised to feel the body underneath hers tense. 

This is not something she has had in her life, not really something she thought she would ever get. She slept with Graham, sure, but he was just a body and even the nights he spent sleeping in her bed were a rarity, a sliver of awkwardness and duty tainting them. No other previous relationships ever gave her a taste of this. 

A body against hers, sharing warmth and skin and comfort, familiarity in even the most mundane details. She knows the rhythm of Emma’s breathing, the dry patch of skin on her elbows, the extra bump of cartilage in Emma’s right ear, she knows all of this and she’s fairly sure Emma knows similar things about her, too. 

They are comfortable sharing their space and this is not something Regina wants to throw away. 

“I know what this is, Regina.” Tense and defensive, Emma has gone from comfortable to prickly. “I know what it started as, but we’re starting to become more and… it’s not a secret that I want it all and sometimes I think you do, too. I need to know, I deserve to…”

Regina curls her fingers into her palm, drawing her hand back as she lets herself roll away onto her back. Her head hits the pillow and she looks up at the ceiling. 

“I’m trying to decide my future here and, you know, I’m not stupid. What I’m doing right now is not sustainable if I’m going to be around here, if you let me, if we do the silly domestic things like eating dinner and watching movies and just, god, spending time with you and Henry. I’ll go beg Graham for work, I’ll become an upstanding citizen and work regular day shifts so I can be here nights and mornings and be part of…”

Emma’s voice catches on a breath and Regina doesn’t want to think she knows Emma well enough to know that deep throbbing urgency of the words she won’t let herself say. Doesn’t want to admit to herself the need in Emma is similar to her own, doesn’t want to… 

“But if you don’t want that, don’t want _me_ that way, then what fucking difference does it make? Right? I’d earn more stripping, so I should just…”

The sheets against Regina’s back are soft and smooth and expensive, but if she closes her eyes she can feel the harsh rasp of wood, that stake pressed up against her spine as she was tied to it. Can hear the whisper of the arrow splitting the air and thudding to a halt mere inches from her face, can still hear the collective intake of breaths from an entire crowd denied their righteous kill. 

She can’t. 

She shouldn’t. 

Emma thinks things hurt now; she has no idea of the pain that lies in store if Regina lets things get too far. 

Regina is doomed for a life that is _almost_ there; forever reaching and straining and never getting. She lost her right to happiness and comfort and love a long time ago. Not even Henry, the biggest joy in her life, is without its pitfalls. And this is all she deserves. 

Regina does not want. 

Regina cannot want. 

“You.” She breathes out against all her natural instincts. “I want you, Emma. All of you.”

The lightness and relief in the triumphant exhale of laughter that comes out of Emma’s throat is sharper than the arrow that would have split her in two. 

“See?” Emma’s eyes shine bright as she rolls over the top of Regina and straddles her hips, looking down at her. “Was that so hard?”

A curtain of yellow curls falls down around her as Emma bends, mouth turning up into a grin just before she kisses Regina’s face; the side of her mouth, the line of her jaw, quick little claiming kisses over her cheek and, finally, her mouth. Passionate, excited, exploratory. 

Soft. 

All the softness she’d tried to hold back and had known Emma wanted. 

“I knew it.” Emma gloats, good naturedly and just so purely happy. “You wanted this, and I knew it, and I’m going to be the best girlfriend ever and you will not regret this.”

Emma is muscles and sinew and strength in movement, she uses her body for dance, but the physicality of it is akin to fighting. Regina thinks she will make the transition easily, can picture her with a sword or crossbow without blinking. 

In fact, the image is far too easy to produce in her mind; she can see the glittering accusation and betrayal that would shine out of Emma’s eyes, the hatred, the despair, once Emma finds the truth. And all her resolve disappears. 

She wants Emma, she wants to keep Emma in her life. 

She will destroy all that is good in Emma if she does. 

“No.” Regina pretends not to notice the flinch just above her as her hands come up to push at Emma’s shoulders above her, to separate them, to give her a little space, as much space as she can get with the woman straddling her hips and resting her weight so deliciously on her abdomen. “I want it, but I’m not choosing it, Emma.”

The light drains from Emma’s eyes as quickly as the colour from her face. The delightedly smug expressions melts in a visible puddle to taken aback and then settling into harsh resignation. Regina completes the push and rolls out from underneath, coming up to sit on the edge of the bed, take a breath, and then stand. 

“No.” Emma repeats, her voice dull and empty; she’s fighting, but it sounds like all the fight has drained right out of her. “You’re not doing this, Regina, not again.”

Her hand shakes as she reaches out to pick up the robe sitting on the lounge. The fabric feels flimsy and unsatisfactory for the amount of protection she needs from this. When she turns, it’s to see Emma kneeling up on the bed, the forgotten sheet pooling around her waist. 

A heartbroken nymph naked on her bed, unaware and uncaring of her nudity as she stares wide eyed and challenging at Regina. 

“I see you.” Emma insists. “I saw you down there, I saw how you watched me, how you watched Henry and me, I know you want this. We can do this, we can…”

“You should leave.” Regina has to speak slowly to stop the trembling from sounding in her voice. “Pick up your clothes and be gone by the time I’m out of the shower. I’ll text you the next time I need you.”

Emma gapes, a full two seconds of silence. 

“Don’t do this.” She sounds broken. It’s a plea, a broken sort of last ditch effort that hurts to hear. “Please, Regina, don’t do this again.”

Pulling up all the reserves she has not needed to use in twenty eight years, Regina squares her shoulders, sets her jaw, and meets Emma’s eyes head on. She does not shake or tremble or waiver. She has all the poise of the Queen she used to be. 

“What are you waiting for, Emma?” A cold hearted question, aimed far too well. “A tip? You’ve certainly earned a decent one.”

Emma moves in a sudden flurry of limbs and flashing, angry eyes, jumping off the bed and coming to stand in front of Regina, inches away. Her words are fast and shaking and full of so much real emotion, Regina wants to close her eyes and block them out. 

“You want me to leave? Regina? I’m fucking gone. Okay? I’m gone. But don’t you dare, don’t you fucking _dare_ come at me with your bullshit again. Don’t throw me out, then follow me around the town with your ‘accidental’ meetings and text after text begging to come back. Just don’t.”

The air is practically shaking with the energy radiating off the two of them and she watches Emma’s hurried, jerky, frantic movements as she picks up clothing from the floor, pulling up jeans and yanking on a shirt. 

Her impulse is to run, to hide from this, to back away into her bathroom and leave Emma to her righteous and furious exit. But she stays. She makes herself witness the pain and resentment and destruction she has caused. 

At the last second, she half expects Emma to slam the door closed. Instead the wood slides into the frame quietly, a respectful nod to the boy asleep down the hall, but Regina flinches as if the sound had whip cracked her across the face. 

***

_\- I’m sorry._

Three days later, Regina sends the text with trembling hands. 

She gets nothing but silence in return, which is exactly what she expects. 

Henry is at school, she tells herself, keeps telling herself. 

_-I’m sorry, Emma, please. I made a mistake._

Perhaps Emma changed her number. Regina certainly would not blame her. If she closes her eyes she can see nothing but Emma’s devastated face, feel her anger. She bites her bottom lip and rolls her fingers into and out of fists as she counts the minutes of silence. 

A nervousness she cannot shake. 

_-We need to talk._

Her mouth is dry and her body is tired. 

Henry is at school. 

She is not in the office. 

_-It’s important. Let me apologise in person, Emma, please._

She hasn’t slept. She has barely eaten. If she puts her head down on a pillow, she thinks, she may never lift it up again. 

This morning, she had made Henry French toast, bacon, fresh fruit, eggs, had plated it perfectly next to tall glass of fresh orange juice she had squeezed. He’d watched her through suspicious, narrowed eyes as he’d wolfed the food down. 

_\- We need to talk, at the very least for Henry’s sake._

The resultant beep of an answer jolts into her spine. She bites her lip harder as she reads the answer. 

_\- Five minutes._

Regina blinks away any growing heat in the corner of her eyes. She won’t do that. Not today. Not now. 

Henry is at school. 

***

Regina holds the door open and tries not to swallow Emma whole with her eyes as the woman ducks past her arm and enters the house. 

Awkward, uncomfortable, Emma’s arms swing lightly by her side before she holds them close to her body.

“Well?”

Regina merely gawks in the face of the demand. 

She is selfish, she has always been selfish, and she is self-aware enough to realise it. She wants this woman she cannot have. She cannot watch Emma across a town, with the divide between them that she has put there. She cannot live knowing Emma is not in her house, in her bed, in her life. 

Selfish enough to take the extra moments before answering, take the time to memorise Emma’s face, her eyes, and her body, the shape of her torso, her shoulders, and the curl of her hair. 

“I was awful.” Regina begins, flexing her fingers to give them something to do, not quite meeting Emma’s eyes. “I was awful and unforgivable and afraid. I think you know that, you knew it then. I owe you more of an apology than I can ever tell you.”

Emma stops her with a raised hand, palm out. 

“I told you not to do this.”

One large inhale fills her lungs with restorative oxygen, gives her the time she needs to keep calm. 

“I know.” She’s not usually so conciliatory; in fact she is never this bowed. “I’m so sorry, Emma. I understand I’ve ruined any chance I might have had with you. I understand that and I will regret it for the rest of my life, but… I don’t want to ruin any chance Henry has with you.”

Emma’s shoulders tense, an obvious bristling. 

“Not that I think you’d take this out on him, but… if we can’t get along, it’s going to affect him.”

“If I was any less of a person.” Emma looks at her with questions in her eyes. So many unasked, unanswered, broken little questions. “I would give in to you, right now. I’d take you back and forgive you for your mistake. But I can’t.”

And Regina would expect nothing less from her. 

“I’m just so tired of this bullshit, Regina. You give, then you take, you want this, then you don’t, you trust me, you don’t. It’s like a ping pong match of my emotions and I can’t do that anymore. I need to protect me.”

“Yes.”

That, at the very least, Regina agrees with whole heartedly. 

Emma’s head jerks back a little, as if she hadn’t expected Regina’s complete capitulation. 

“Just tell me what you want.”

What she wants is to push Emma against the wall, fall to her knees, and prove just how much she wants this woman, how much she wants to own and be owned and belong to her, how much she wants to spend forever paying homage to her. 

But Emma, as she is, is Regina’s greatest weakness.

“I want us to try to get past this and remain cordial, for Henry’s sake.”

And Emma nods her silent agreement, her silly, stupid trusting approval.

Regina’s smile is weak and tremulous. 

“So I made you something, in the spirit of good will.” Her hands shake as she passes the Tupperware container over. “I know how much you like my baking.”

And Emma, beautiful, stunning, surprising, magical, trusting, silly Emma, takes it with both hands. Her eyes drop surreptitiously to the box, trying and failing not to appear too eager to view the contents. 

“Okay…?”

The silence drags on, becoming awkward in Emma’s confusion as Regina continues staring at her. 

She should turn away, spin on her heels and just walk away, before she does something completely stupid like snatch the container away and throw it in the trash. 

“Just…” Her voice does break, stuttering over a blockage in her throat. “… Emma…”

She doesn’t think she has ever sounded so desperate. 

She’s fairly sure Emma agrees with the statement if the wide eyes that greet her are any indication. She is cold hearted and selfish and just self-aware enough to realise it. Reaching out, she grabs the front of Emma’s shirt and pulls the stunned woman in. 

The kiss is deep and strong and, to begin with, entirely one sided, but then Emma relents and Regina savours the feel of soft lips against hers, the hot breath that streams out of Emma’s nostrils against her face, the smell and taste and feel of her. 

She commits it all to memory and then pulls back. 

“I did want you.” Regina says as she steps back. “Whatever else you believe, know that I wanted you.”

Then Regina pulls away and holds the door open for Emma as she carries the Tupperware box to her car with a bemused expression on her face. 

She closes the door with a finality that echoes, turns her back and slides down the wall, trying not to listen for the engine that sputters into life outside. 

***

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***  
>  **A/N:** Not sorry? It's in the title.


End file.
